Development of high peak and average power Tm:YLF lasers

Abstract

We present experimental results that show how diode-pumped Tm:YLF can be used to develop the next generation of lasers with high peak and high average power. We demonstrate the production of broad bandwidth, λ ≈ 1.9 µm wavelength, high energy pulses with up to 1.6 J output energy and subsequent compression to sub-300 fs duration. This was achieved using a single 8-pass amplifier to boost stretched ~ 50 µJ pulses to the Joule-level. Furthermore, we show the average power capability of this material in a helium gas-cooled amplifier head, achieving a heat removal rate almost 10 times higher than the state-of-the-art, surpassing 20 W/cm 2 . These demonstrations illustrate the capabilities of directly diodepumped Tm:YLF to support TW to PW-class lasers at kW average power.